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5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About The Pilgrims

Without the Pilgrims, we probably wouldn’t have a day dedicated to eating turkey and pumpkin pie and giving thanks. But did you know the Pilgrims didn’t actually eat turkey and pumpkin pie? Here are five facts you probably didn’t know about the Pilgrims.

The Mayflower didn’t land in Plymouth first.

The Mayflower first landed at the tip of Cape Cod, in what is now Provincetown. They had hoped to make it to the mouth of the Hudson River and find fertile farmland north of present-day New York City, but bad weather forced them to change their plans. They wanted to try for the Hudson River again, but winter set in and low supplies caused them to continue on across Cape Cod Bay to Plymouth.

Plymouth, Massachusetts Wasn’t Named For Plymouth, England.

The Pilgrims departed from Plymouth, England, but aren’t responsible for naming Plymouth, Massachusetts. It had been named that years earlier by explorers in the regions and was marked as Plymouth – or Plimoth (spellings varied) – on maps. It’s just an odd coincidence that the Mayflower sailed from and landed in a town called Plymouth.

Some of the Mayflower’s passengers had been to America before.

Several of the Mayflower’s crew had made the passage before, on either fishing or exploration trips. One of them, Stephen Hopkins, tried to settle at Jamestown 10 years earlier. On his way to join the settlement, his ship wrecked off the coast of Bermuda. Hopkins eventually returned to England and joined the Mayflower as a member of the sympathetic group of supporters from London.

The pilgrims dwindled – and then flourished.

Nearly half of the Mayflower passengers and crew died during the harsh winter of 1621. To hide their dwindling numbers from the Native Americans, they buried their dead at night in unmarked graves. Ultimately, the pilgrims flourished; over the next 70 years, the colony grew to more than 3,000 people. Today, more than 35 million people are direct descendants of the pilgrims, including the likes of John Adams, Franklin Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, and Clint Eastwood.

The first Thanksgiving meal wasn’t “traditional.”

The first Thanksgiving feast didn’t look like today’s traditional meal. It included foods like venison, sea bass, cod, clams, lobster, eel, mussels, ground nuts, squashes, beans and berries. The pilgrims didn’t use forks, but used a knife, spoon, and their fingers to eat. They shared plates and cups, which led to the spread of disease. The whole meal was prepared by four women and two girls. They also did the clean up!

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